Monthly Archives: August 2011

Staining is so much fun when you know you won’t have more to do in the future..A* starts with the ‘Golden Oak’ stain..

and keeps going..and going and going…(while she goes she stains..hehe) . I love the transformation that takes place with stain on wood..some of the pieces don’t even look the same when they get the stain on..it really adds character.And while we stain, Jango gets to have a relaxing day outside. With all the construction I think Jango has a sense that we is not welcome inside. He alternated between sleeping in front of the door then going and sleeping in the pile of sawdust..I think he sleeps in the sawdust for spite.

We applied the second coat of stain after we did some yardwork..but when we got home it was too dark. On to the varathane tomorrow..we are thinking 3-4 coats since the area is so high traffic..it will depend on time and materials I think.

..oh my stupid blistered hand. I realized too late but needed a glove to finish up countersinking the 500 or so nails. As I progressed with nailing in the boards the small differences in the widths became big gaps later on in the rows. After I got to a part where I noticed the gaps I was creating I cut off the edges of the wider boards for a snugger fit for the remaining rows. There were some big differences with doing this room due to multiple things..the wide boards, the number of joins, the need to offset joins, the size of the room as well as my lack of patience..compared to the 2 bedrooms this was more difficult..but then again I am really glad I did not start out in the living room.

..to do much work..summer is near end and while close on finishing the floor we puttered then went for a hike on my loop/trail. The trails around here run for hundreds of km as long as you have the keys for gates in the area..which I don’t. My loop is well before any gates. As for flooring, all floor pieces cut now..sanding tomorrow and hopefully nailing.

..getting on my motorcycle to head to work and out popped a chipmunk from under the coop and it hopped right towards me. Odd. Then I see Cheesy (an ermine) popping his head out from under the mini-coop too. The chipmunk was startled by me and ran back under the coop and they both vanished for good. Not a great sign since all the chicks are roaming the yard during the day..these days T-bar the older hen stays with them and they are getting used to her presence outside so hopefully she could fend off an attack or at least be loud enough for us to hear it if it did happen. I fear my lack of wanting to capture or kill the varmint will cost me..ah, the first one is free Cheesy..second offense could mean a forced exportation. Our once a month porcupine foiling has been met as of last night too..bumper crop for porcupine this year.

..I buy too many books. I read and always have a slew of books to read but we want more space for storage so I am compromising. I have read some books on eReaders in the past and it wasn’t bad but we like the idea of no new books to take up unavailable space. Supposedly the Kindle can go weeks/months between charges..perfect cause I hate it when my books run out of batteries at the beach. I also uploaded all kinds of .pdfs on obscure topics so now the infomation is readily available for all those instances where I never need it. I am sure there is another test conditions post in the future.

..where will the end pieces come to meet? This is sort of like tetris. We know where the furniture is going to be and we want to hide joins for end pieces where possible such as under a couch, coffee table or that place I stand when i want to hide a bad join. It also looks like I should square up the ends anyway..but I am holding up so I can do it all at once…the knarly end piece sorta looks like a walrus..roughly 1/2 the sanding done now..just in time for rain!